With NSA controversy, debate over secrecy is revived

9:21 PM,
Jun. 12, 2013

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. The man who told the world about the U.S. government's gigantic data grab also talked a lot about himself. Mostly through his own words, a picture of Edward Snowden is emerging: fresh-faced computer whiz, high school and Army dropout, independent thinker, trustee of official secrets. And leaker on the lam.

Written by

Aamer Madhani and David Jackson
USA TODAY

In the aftermath of the revelations that the National Security Agency is sweeping up vast amounts of telephone and Internet records, Google and Facebook are calling for the government to reveal more about how they operate secret surveillance programs.

The call by the tech giants for less secrecy is spurring a broader debate about whether the intelligence community is remaining unnecessarily opaque about some of its operations. ...